Hurriyet, Turkey
April 24 2010

Turks in Istanbul commemorate 1915 killings of Armenians

Saturday, April 24, 2010
ISTANBUL ‘ Agence France-Presse

Human rights activists and artists in Istanbul commemorated the
1915-17 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks for the first time
Saturday, breaking with a near century-old Turkish taboo.

The Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association, or Ä°HD, organized
a rally attended by about 100 people on the steps of the HaydarpaÅ?a
train station from where the first convoy of 220 deported Armenians
left on April 24, 1915.

Under the slogan "Never Again" and the watchful eye of the police,
demonstrators carried black and white photos of some of the deportees,
most of whom never returned.

Police kept at bay a group of counter-demonstrators including former
diplomats waving the Turkish flag.

Forty-two Turkish diplomats were killed by members of the extremist
Armenian ASALA organization in the 1970s and 1980s.

Turkish intellectuals and artists signed a petition calling on "those
who feel the great pain" to show their sorrow.

Avoiding an open confrontation over the term genocide ‘which the
Turkish government fiercely rejects ‘ the petition speaks of the
"Great Catastrophe" of the 1915-17 massacres.

But despite this precaution, organizers were afraid of a backlash from
those who could object to the demonstration.

"All precautionary measures have been taken but it’s always possible
that someone is losing it," Cengiz Aktar, an Istanbul academic who
backs the petition, told AFP.

The unprecedented commemoration came as tens of thousands of Armenians
marked the 95th anniversary of the killings in the Armenian capital
Yerevan amid fresh tensions with Turkey over the collapse of
reconciliation efforts.

The dispute about the genocide label has poisoned relations between
the two neighbors for decades.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically
killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of
modern Turkey, was falling apart. Turkey says many were killed on both
sides during civil strife.